Screeners: A Ten Year Love Story

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                                                              1/13/5

The pale cotton candy blue of the California afternoon sky shone through, the towering glass windows of the LA Sun Times boardroom. Katie stood tall and astute in the front of the room, bent slightly over the gleaming cherry wood table, her palms pressed powerfully against it. Her hair was pinned back into a braid, and she was dressed in an intensely burgundy pantsuit. Something about the way she stood intimidated Julie to no end, as she shrunk down in her chair, wearing a less than professional sea blue cardigan. Katie was babbling on about tackling newspaper writing in this so called digital age, in which they had clunky, blase white computers, they were supposed to use as a “resource”.

 

Feeling her mind slip into a whimsical daydream about this wonderful city of LA, Julie felt an abrupt tap on her knee, causing it to feel set afire, and her eyesight to go fuzzy for a second. Who could possibly have done that to her, Julie glanced around her in this crowded conference room, and to her shock, Marc was staring square into her eyes. A sly smile was cast on his face and a crumpled piece of Post It Note was in his open hand, offering it to Julie. Ignore what just happened, she said to herself as she grabbed the note from under the table and greedily read it to herself. Marc’s handwriting was messy and rushed looking, the dark pen was smeared in the corner of the note. It said: Are you ready to snooze or is it just me, followed by a line of massive z’s. Julie bit her tongue to contain her childlike giggle and scribbled on the back: Are you an eternal twelve year old, passing notes? Being a child herself, she added a winky face, just for effect.

 

As secretly as she could, Julie passed the note onto Marc’s denim covered legs, avoided finger to leg contact for obvious reasons. Her eyes preceded to refocus on Katie and whatever corporate spun fakeness was coming out of her little, pretty mouth. A rough, sensation touched her hand and Julie once again unfolded that yellow note, Marc had hastily replied: I’m living in an eternal childhood Ms.Dawen and you just happen to be a part of it. She dug her foot into the carpeted floor, trying to retrieve her lost pen. That caught Katie’s attention immediately.

 

“Julie, do you have a leg itch or are you trying to communicate your thoughts?” This incited uncomfortable laughter from her colleagues, all expect from Marc, who had a look of pain and pity on his face, he avoided looking directly at Katie.

 

“Katie, I actually do have an idea. Why don’t we go back to vintage, Ebert type reviews, I mean isn’t that what our demographic loves. Going all technical would just confuse them and that would hurt us.” Julie had just felt a jolt of confidence that she had nearly never felt before, she was confident and excited that her true opinion was showing.

 

Katie’s face changed from one of indifference to a look of incredibly rare happiness. “Now that’s what I’m talking about guys, enthusiasm and passion is what I want to see. Anyone else that wants to contribute can.”

 

Julie’s high of enthusiasm was cut short sadly when Kate, everyone’s secretly least favorite receptionist, burst through the door, curled cord and all. “Julie Dawen, phone call on line three, from some guy who says his name is Tim Gaines."

The one name Julie had bet on never hearing again, the one man Julie had ever loved or with knowing what she knows now, thought she loved. Her face went white and her legs began to shake rapidly, “tell him I coming on the other end…”